Now, The Cure, this band…
This band is a damned fine band.
No one like them.
No one can be like them, that’s the genius of Robert Smith and The Cure.
I contend that to this day.
Robert Smith wrote songs like you’d never heard before, and you’ve never heard since.
Poppy-sounding, happy songs that make you bounce on your feet with lyrics that will shred your heart.
And the bass in those songs…
[Smiles ruefully]
Dave, Tim, they like The Cure.
Shawn, he gets The Cure, though he’s not what you’d call a fan.
That bass, obviously, I love them.
Preach…
Now if there’s a band Preach is a disciple of, it’s The Cure.
And I think it’s not hard for anyone to get why.
So, just sayin’, we know how to play Cure songs.
But doin’ one on the road?
[Shakes head]
Then Preach puts “Lovesong” on the setlist.
You know, after it all went down, for the rest of my life, I always tried to be sure I never got so deep up my own ass, I didn’t see. I didn’t hear. I didn’t listen.
Especially to the people I love.
We sang that song, and I was sure our audience, our fans were going to think nothin’ but “What the fuck?”
They didn’t.
A human swell.
You look out from the stage, that was what it was. Rolling this way and that, hanging on the sound of Preacher’s voice, drifting to the wave of music, the melancholy beauty of that song.
Preach sang those words and everyone knows they’re for Lyla, even though no one but Preacher knows how bad Lyla needs to hear them.
“Maybe I’m Amazed” is an insanely beautiful song.
When we played “Lovesong…”
For our fans, for us, for the lore of the Roadmasters, that became…
[Stops speaking and doesn’t resume for some time]
After it all went down that became…
It.
After that shit hit with Dave and Leeanne, a rift has definitely formed in the band.
Preacher.
And the rest of us.
And this is the only time I thought this, but we need him to be about us, not Lyla.
We’re on tour and nothing’s ever gonna shake them so they need to put on hold whatever is goin’ on and he needs to see to his brothers.
At least, that was what I thought at the time.
And I was right.
I was also wrong.
Dave not wakin’ up, Penny the way she was being something I always had on my mind, goin’ through what I was goin’ through ditchin’ the shit, knowin’ Dave and Tim got it worse, Shawn is no nursemaid, but he’s suddenly not all about boning when he’s not hanging with the band.
He’s about keeping us hydrated and finding shit for us to do to keep our minds off it.
And shit is like that for the band and Preacher’s not involved in that?
Preacher doesn’t have our backs?
Preacher is not losing his own crutches?
We all start to get pissed.
He’s on for a show. He’s on in a radio booth.
But he and Lyla miss band breakfasts, hit the plane fuzzy and distracted and pass out almost immediately. They disappear from the dressing room and come back sniffing and swiping their noses.
And we’re not partying, but they are.
You’re Preacher and Lyla, you can find a party anywhere. Everyone wants to party with you.
Any bar you pick, you pitch up, it’s a rave.
She’s out there in her little satin slip dresses, her chucks and jeans overalls, her cutoffs and camis with a tangle of necklaces down her front, and he’s Preacher, they get noticed.
They get their pictures taken and those pictures get in magazines.
They got their foreheads together over a table, lookin’ gorgeous, lookin’ into each other, lookin’ in love, but on that table, there are three empty martini glasses and a half empty bourbon bottle next to an empty lowball glass.
Or he’s throwing some back and she’s got her face tucked to his neck and you can see her tongue is out, tasting him.
[Links fingers with forefingers steepled, bends neck and rests forefingers against his forehead before he looks up and drops his hands]
Not good.
I think we’re in Phoenix when Tim goes off the setlist.
Da-da-da-da, da da da da da, da-da-da-da, da da da da [hums beginning riff of “Life in the Fast Lane”].
The crowd loses their fuckin’ minds.
And I get it, that’s a kickass fuckin’ song.
But I can feel Preacher’s laser beam gaze searing through me as he’s lookin’ at Tim, not because he goes off set, which also is not okay, but because Tim’s message is far from lost on Preacher.
Tim stops playing when it comes clear Preach isn’t gonna jump in for the next bar, and Jesus…
Tim doesn’t back down.
He goes again.
The audience thinks this is a schtick. They’re now in a goddamn frenzy, they want us to do that song so bad they’ll tear the house down for it, and what’s hitting us is a brick wall of sound.
Preach has no choice.
He jumps in.
Tim sings and he’s practically channeling Henley.
We had a good sound system, but man, we were nearly drowned out with the crowd singing with us to that song.
I don’t know how many songs we had left after that.
I just know, there were a lot of them.
And still, when we got offstage, Preach doesn’t even hand his guitar off to a roadie.
He’s got his fingers wrapped around the neck and he backs Tim into the wall of the hall and gets in his face.
“Not cool, brother,” he says.
And Christ.
Tim still doesn’t back down.
He replies, “I know.”
We all knew something was off with Preacher.
He didn’t tell us what it was.
And that was on him.
But we knew there was something and we didn’t push, didn’t even ask.
[Lengthy pause]
[Quietly] And that was totally on us.
Interviewer’s Impressions, Recorded After Event:
Upon arrival at the cabin, the red Cherokee is again in the lane, the silver truck is not, but a blue Mini with white racing stripes over the hood and roof is.
Lyla is not waiting in the opened back door.
After knocking, I hear what I had not heard the day before.
The sounds of dogs barking, a number of them, from deep woofs to high-pitched yaps.
Lyla is opening the door at the same time speaking, telling someone to take the dogs out.
A young woman’s voice calls back, stating, “I’m leaving Bobby McGee!”
“All right!” Lyla says, dipping her chin and opening the door.
Over the dogs still barking, she apologizes for ending the session so abruptly the day before, invites me in, and as previously, she offers refreshments.
The gray cat is already in residence on the daybed, today joined by a tiger cat with black markings on gray.
As the day before, the gray cat eschews company; the tiger cat is friendly and welcoming.
A door slams somewhere in the cabin, the barking stops, and a young woman can be seen out the windows who looks a great deal like the young man the day before.